What is Musical Theatre?

Musical theatre is a form of theatrical performance that combines songs, spoken dialogue, acting and dance. The story and emotional content of a musical – humor, pathos, love, anger – are communicated through words, music, movement and technical aspects of the entertainment as an integrated whole. Although musical theatre overlaps with other theatrical forms like opera and dance, it may be distinguished by the equal importance given to the music as compared to the dialogue, movement and other elements. Since the early 20th century, musical theatre stage works have generally been simply called, musicals.

From wikipedia

This month we are happy to introduce some of the musical numbers and composers recommended by Coach Natalie Yeap in our previous Podcast Episode, Find your inner voice episode #10.

Musical SIX

"It's very funny. I think a lot of is good fun. It also teaches you about history at the same time. "

SIX is a musical about six ex-wives of Henry the 8th who tell their stories of suffering while trying to win a competition of being the lead singer. You can enjoy the snippet of the show from this video.

If you're young and you're trying to find a way into the traditional sense of musical theatre, you can listen to composers such as Rodgers and Hammerstein - who wrote music for The Sound of Music, Cinderella, Oklahoma!, Allegro, King and I and many more. Or even look up Andrew Lloyd Webber's music for Cats, Phantom of the Opera, Jesus Christ Superstar or Evita.

If you're not into any kind of legit sound, I would look at some contemporary writers like Pasek and Paul. Pasek and Paul wrote the most famous scripts for Devon Hansen and The Greatest Showman, which has bled into our pop scene today.

I would also look at Kerrigan and Lowdermilk. They are a writing duo, they haven't had as much commercial success but they have a lot of really well written contemporary songs that are meant for teenagers to young adults, also with many shared experiences as well, for you to connect to.

There are hundreds of music pieces you can listen to from the above recommendations, and you'll be surprised to see the variety of musical songs that speak to your heart!